Native American Protesters in North Dakota Are Showing Us The Way

In just two months, Americans who bother will cast their votes for a new president.  If you believe the media, it is now a close presidential race between serious representatives of two traditional political visions for the future of this country, conservative and liberal. Trump is the boisterous, always entertaining and even scandalous outsider, ready to bring his dynamic personality and business acumen to bear on the country’s social and economic problems. Clinton is the sharp, experienced political insider who knows how to get things done in Washington, and the first serious female candidate for the nation’s top office. This is the narrative the mainstream media is weaving day in and day out, and it is, of course, pure fantasy.

The national train wreck we are all watching in slow motion is a match-up between a narcissistic, racist madman and a calculating corporate puppet. The winner will sit at the helm of the superpower that is, or tries to be, the world’s enforcer, sticking its corrupt capitalist tentacles into countries far and wide, toppling left-wing leaders, supporting right-wing dissidents and buying or stealing the planet’s natural resources. All of this is bad enough under a fairly benign president like Obama, but when you consider who will replace him….

Yet here we are, helplessly watching our own demise. Unlike the 1960s, there is no national effort to try and stop us from self-destruction, no passionate youth, no peaceniks, no one with the energy or will to stand up to our military/industrial/media masters. Sorry Ike, but your warning went unheeded and they have won control of this country, and their greed and disdain for democracy is pulling us down like a tin statue while we are distracted watching Dancing with the Stars.

It’s time to face the music, America. The national popularity of Donald Trump is the dead canary in the cage. It is the clearest indication of our imminent destruction as a world power. Our once envied public education system has been decimated, the mainstream media is nothing more than a corporate mouthpiece, elections are completely controlled and manipulated, and those people who actually run America are unaccountable elites who work behind the curtain.

While progressives seem content moaning and wailing on obscure online news sites, the country is collapsing. The only people I see today who have the courage to stand up for their rights are the members of the Native American tribes gathering in North Dakota to stop the construction of a pipeline through their land. Their collective efforts have resulted in at least a temporary victory. We must pay attention, because they serve as an example we progressives should be emulating across the nation; peaceful collective protests. It’s really all we have left.

The Revenant and Hollywood’s Treatment of American History

When I walked out of the theater after watching “The Revenant,” I was in a state of awe. Taut, thrilling, beautifully filmed, amazing characters — I was really impressed with the film and, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio’s heart wrenching performance. Now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, however, my take on the movie is evolving, not regarding the excellent work of everyone involved in the production, but about the storyline subtexts.

“The Revenant” actually has much in common with the 1972 movie “Jeremiah Johnson” starring Robert Redford. Both feature a white man dissatisfied with civilization who escapes to the untamed western mountains. As mountain men, Johnson and Glass are attracted to Native Americans and their culture, each marrying a tribal woman. After a cataclysmic event, a bear attack in Glass’s case, Johnson leads white settler through sacred native land, they must endure unimaginable hardships and violence to survive. Each movie ends with a resolution that is both satisfying, and at the same time questionable, knowing how much the journey has cost each man.

In both “The Reverent” and “Jeremiah Johnson,” each protagonist is a white man who can’t help but have a foot in both the racist white civilization from which they came and the dying Native American culture, which they aspire to. It is in each case, however, a white man’s story. It feels as though these two movies, and others, like “Dancing with Wolves,” are Hollywood’s very weak and anglo-centric attempt at apologizing for the genocide of Native Americans. It’s as if they’re saying, “Wait, we weren’t all racist, genocidal maniacs.”

It is, however, a lame and insulting attempt. Think about a movie where a Nazi soldier hides some Jews and despises Hitler. It could be an intriguing movie, but is a film about a do-gooder Nazi any kind of apology for the horrors of the Third Reich? Not all the Nazis were bad. So what?

We, our white ancestors, committed genocide on a national scale and making some movies about good-guy whites during that period only distracts us from the reality of our crime. America has yet to come to grips with our treatment of Native Americans from nearly the moment the Pilgrims landed here to this very day where they are still living in atrocious conditions on reservations. “The Revenant” is a story about a good white man vs. an evil white man. The Native Americans are mostly props for historical authenticity, but don’t be tricked into believing this is their story. That movie has yet to be made.